Long Patience

Last fall, I was at a garden store looking to see if there might be one last vegetable I could plant in my garden before winter when something caught my eye. It was a packet of Snowdrop bulbs.

I had been looking for Snowdrops for years. Ever since I first saw them as a teen, they have been my favorite flowers, and a precious reminder of God’s goodness to me, specifically.

But despite the fact that they grow prolifically in many of our neighbors’ yards and even flourish in the traffic circle near our house, I have never been able to grow them myself.

That’s why I was so excited to actually find somewhere to buy the bulbs.

When I got them home, I surveyed my little garden and considered where to plant them. Then, I  carefully read the directions on the packet, determined not to kill the bulbs by accident.

As exciting as it was to find the bulbs, and to plant them, and to dream about how lovely they would look when they finally came up, between planting the bulbs and seeing the flowers, there would be months and months in which I could do absolutely nothing but wait.

When I first planted the bulbs, God brought to mind this passage:

“Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” James 5:7-8

This week, the very first little stalks of green poked through the ground. The next day, I could see a little slip of white at the top of some of them, and by the end of the week, three white heads bobbed daintily at the end of their green stems.

Each time I walk past one of the snowdrop plants, I revel in the fact that they are, at last, my snowdrops, and am reminded of these verses about long patience.

It never ceases to amaze me how many things God put into His physical creation to remind us of spiritual truths. Just as there are planting and harvesting seasons of life, there are also seasons of long waiting.

The most significant season of waiting for the Christian is the faith-filled expectation of—and longing for—the return of Christ. We know He is coming, we know it could be today, but until the moment of His appearing, our hearts are to wait with the same “long patience” of a farmer waiting for harvest.—Or a gardener waiting for her snowdrops to come up.

Looking back from the joy side of a season of long patience in the garden, I am encouraged to remember that our season of long patience for the Lord’s return will have a joy side as well.

As with all waiting seasons, our waiting for the return of Christ will have an end, and we will one day look back on this day, remembering the waiting and how God used it to grow us and all that He allowed us to accomplish for His glory while we waited.

So, be patient, dear reader. God has not forgotten about you. His return still gleams brightly on the horizon, bringing with it the dawning of perfect joy, peace, and love, forever just as fresh and new as it was the day before.

“For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, and with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”

1 Thessalonians 4:16-18